jobbite
Pros
RLH hires with two large carrots- 1) Opportunity to move to associate (for analysts) and 2) Large bonus ranges. Unfortunately, neither of these will come to fruition.
The culture is strongly emphasized at RLH. As with most small shops, fit is 50-60% of the hiring process. Everyone is required to play fantasy football and talking smack is not only encouraged, it has a strong correlation to your success at the firm. One associate did not want to play ffootball and the founding partner told him, his “decision would be a career limiting move”. If you do not know follow sports in depth, you will be left out of 75% of the conversations with the senior partners.
Face time is important, even though you are told time and again it is not. 12 hour days are the norm (7:30am -8:00pm) and if you are in your seat at 7:31 you will get dinged. The Junior Partner (who really runs the firm) panders to the Founding Partner and expects the same pandering from those under him. Associates are told they will have an opportunity to participate in the funds, however this is untrue. Even the director has an extremely minimal participation in the funds. Ninety percent of the turnover happens directly after bonus time, primarily due to disappointment. There is always some excuse as to why your bonus range is cut, or why you should be grateful you get anything at all due to the economy or an isolated incident (such as not preparing well for a trip).RLH has had 67% turnover in the last 2 years (not including partners).
All of their ex-employees have been successful post RLH, although I am not sure if this is due to the quality hired or the work enviorment. For analysts, RLH has a training program that is very shallow. There are brief overviews of real estate, financial modeling, and property law but nothing in depth. The goal is for analysts to “sink or swim”. When you are assigned a new property you are told to “go read all the files”, however then you are expected to know all the facts about the property. This is very challenging to do. You are told to “own” your investments, however if you make a decision on your own you will be dinged. The managing (junior) partner wants to come up with his own ideas and have you agree with him. To get ahead, you have to walk a thin line as a yes man with original ideas.
The location of Colorado Springs is great if you are married and awful if you are not. Colorado Springs has five military bases and a male to female ratio of 5/2. There are very few young professionals here (non-military), most younger people migrate to Denver or elsewhere. The town starts to shut down at 8pm, if you are working late there will only be bars open when you get off. The outdoors/mountains are nice, however during the week you work from sun-up to sun-down. RLH has the most politics I have ever seen in a small firm.
Seventy percent (or more) of RLH’s returns are locked in at the purchase of the asset. However ninety percent of the time is spent on management of the asset, not much/enough attention is paid at the beginning. This firm did well purchasing Florida, California and Washington in the early 90’s and riding the real estate boom, however if we do not have another real estate boom RLH will not do well going forward.
Salary- 55,000
Vacation- 2 weeks
CFA reimbursement
Good 401k match
Poor bonus accross the board
